History of the war in the Peninsula and in the south of France from the year 1807 to the year 1814, vol. 5

by William Francis Patrick Napier

Hill’s division occupied Coria, and Placentia, and held the town of Bejar by a detachment.

Two divisions were quartered on a second line behind Hill about Castelo Branco, and in the Upper Beira.

The light division remained on the Agueda, and the rest of the infantry were distributed along the Duero from Lamego downwards.

The Portuguese cavalry were placed in Moncorvo, and the British cavalry, with the exception of Victor Alten’s brigade which was attached to the light division, occupied the valley of the Mondego.

Carlos D’España’s troops garrisoned Ciudad Rodrigo, and the Gallicians marched through the Tras os Montes to their own country.

In these quarters the Anglo-Portuguese were easily fed, because the improved navigation of the Tagus, the Douro, and the Mondego, furnished water carriage close to all their cantonments; moreover the army could be quickly collected on either frontier, for the front line of communication from Estremadura passed by the bridge of Alcantara to Coria, and from thence through the pass of Perales to the Agueda. The second line run by Penamacor and Guinaldo, and both were direct; but the post of Bejar, although necessary to secure Hill’s quarters from a surprise, was itself exposed.

The French also had double and direct communications across the Gredos mountains. On their first line they restored a Roman road leading from Horcajada, on the Upper Tormes, by the Puerto de Pico to Monbeltran, and from thence to Talavera. To ease their second line they finished a road, begun the year before by Marmont, leading from Avila, by the convent of Guisando and Escalona to Toledo. But these communications though direct, were in winter so difficult, that general Laval crossing the mountains from Avila was forced to harness forty horses to a carriage; moreover Wellington having the interior and shorter lines, was in a more menacing position for offence, and a more easy position for defence; wherefore, though he had ordered all boats to be destroyed at Almaraz, Arzobispo, and other points where the great roads came down to the Tagus, the French, as anxious to prevent him from passing that river, as he was to prevent them, sent parties to destroy what had been overlooked. Each feared that the other would move, and yet neither wished to continue the campagin, Wellington, because his troops wanted rest, more than one-third being in the hospitals! the French because they could not feed their men and had to refix their general base of operations, broken up and deranged as it was by the Guerillas.

The English general was however most at his ease. He knew that the best French officers thought it useless to continue the contest in Spain, unless the British army was first mastered, Soult’s intercepted letters showed him how that general desired to fix the war in Portugal, and there was now a most powerful force on the frontier of that kingdom. But on the other hand Badajos, Ciudad Rodrigo, and Almeida blocked the principal entrances, and though the two former were very ill provided by the Spaniards, they were in little danger because the last campaign had deprived the French of all their ordnance, arsenals, and magazines, in Andalusia, Almaraz, Madrid, Salamanca, and Valladolid; and it was nearly impossible for them to make any impression upon Portugal, until new establishments were formed. Wherefore Wellington did not fear to spread his troops in good and tranquil quarters, to receive reinforcements, restore their equipments, and recover their health and strength.

This advantage was not reciprocal. The secondary warfare which the French sustained, and which it is now time again to notice, would have been sufficient to establish the military reputation of any nation before Napoleon’s exploits had raised the standard of military glory. For when disembarrassed of their most formidable enemy, they were still obliged to chase the Partidas, to form sieges, to recover and restore the posts they had lost by concentrating their armies, to send moveable columns by long winter marches over a vast extent of country for food, fighting for what they got, and living hard because the magazines filled from the fertile districts were of necessity reserved for the field operations against Wellington. Certainly it was a great and terrible war they had in hand, and good and formidable soldiers they were to sustain it so long and so manfully amidst the many errors of their generals.